Welcome to Room 12!

I've decided to dedicate my first post to a small tour of my classroom.  I consider everything in my classroom to be a "work in progress", so please don't mind a few messes here and there! :)  You can click on the photos to enlarge them/see more detail.

This year, I chose to use a nautical theme in my classroom.  I've never truly had a full-fledged theme in my classroom until this year, and I have to admit that I love it!  It created a nice sense of community at the beginning of the year and it really brightened things up.  Here is the entrance to my room:

The best "overall" view I could get:

I have been gathering resources for a few years to complete my classroom library.  Thanks to donations from colleagues, parents, students, and funds from my school, here's what I have so far.  Ideally, this library would be leveled, but right now it is simply sorted by genre:

I purchased my book baskets from Really Good Stuff and use printables from Beth Newingham's website to create my labels. (If you haven't checked out her resources, you MUST.  She's simply amazing!)

My gathering area is one very important to me.  This is where most of my mini-lessons take place, where I read aloud to my students, and where my students read aloud their pieces of writing.  It's a treasured spot! :)

Below is my "literacy-focused" area.  This year, I implemented the Daily 5 approach to literacy instruction.  Here you will find all of our anchor charts that list Daily 5 practices and include pictures of students at each station.  In our classroom, we call it "Daily 3" since that is all the time our schedule allows:

The left portion of my bulletin board displays our current reading theme and skills (we use Literacy By Design curriculum):

Here is my small-group table where I teach guided reading each day.  I keep my leveled readers on the shelves nearby:

Finally, this is my little haven.  My desk has 3 parts:  the main area with my computer, phone, etc., a side desk with my lesson planner, photos, supplies, and a back counter where I keep my manuals, copies, and "to-do" work:

I hope you enjoyed browsing!  One of my very favorite things to do is to peek into other teachers' rooms and "borrow" ideas! 

:)KQ